


When the Night Has Come

by autumnchills



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Buck Centric, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Firefam Feels, Gen, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Sad Evan "Buck" Buckley, Team as Family, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, i’m very frustrated with it, what about it, writing to pretend canon doesn’t exist, yeah i made up that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 05:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21131189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnchills/pseuds/autumnchills
Summary: His sex-addict days were behind him, along with every woman he’d slept with in that craze. Most of them were nothing but a brief memory and a face labeled by usernames.Well, most of them were.And he’d honestly never thought of what had happened as a big deal. That is, until Chimney hit them with the news.—After denying the truth for so long, Buck comes to terms with what happened with Dr. Welles. Takes place in Season 2.





	When the Night Has Come

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Stand By Me, but the [Bootstraps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRO5XAGDb5w) cover.
> 
> No actual rape occurs within the story, but it is implied and the event is discussed. Please read with caution.

Evan Buckley learns several things over the course of his second chance at the 118 Firehouse. One of those things is that he is _ not _ a sex addict. He thought he was for the longest time, unsure of why he always wanted more. Somewhere along the way, and mixed up in his feelings for Abby, he’d realized that he had been using sex as a tool. He’d used sex to feel good about himself, and he hadn’t needed that when he was with her. Abby made him feel good just by talking to him and taught him that there was more in life that could make him feel good, too. Soon enough, his sex-addict days were behind him, along with every woman he’d slept with in that craze. Most of them were nothing but a brief memory and a face labeled by usernames.

Well, most of them were.

And he’d honestly never thought of what had happened as a big deal. That is until Chimney hits them with the news.   


——

“Hey,” Chimney greets them, walking toward the table in the loft. “Did you guys hear about Dr. Welles?” He’s waving his phone around where some article is open. “One of the guys at the 105 sent me a text with a link about it.”

Eddie, looking up from his meal, shakes his head. “Who’s that?”

“The trauma counselor?” Bobby asks.

“Oh,” Hen chimes in, “I remember her. She seemed nice.” She shrugs and picks a fry off of Buck’s plate. He playfully smacks at her hand in turn.

“She was fired yesterday.” Chimney went on. 

Bobby’s face scrunches in surprise. “That’s unfortunate. I only saw her once, but she seemed really good at her job.”

“Well good riddance,” Buck quips. He doesn’t realize that he said it out loud until no one responds. He’s almost not sure why he did either.

The team eyes him warily. It was pretty rare for Buck to dislike people. He hadn’t liked Eddie at first, but that was something that was born out of jealousy. They all seem to be asking him the same question.

“She was weird.” He quickly gives one general look around the loft, not meeting their questioning eyes, and shrugs.

“Didn’t I set you up with her?” Bobby questions. “You didn’t mention not liking her before.” 

“Yeah,” Buck hedges. “I didn’t really want to talk about it, though.” He lowers his head, shoves another fry in his mouth, and fails to notice that he’s the only one still readily eating.

Eddie can sense the tension building and reaches for some ketchup. He succeeds in getting everyone moving again, though they’re all moving a bit slower this time. It’s as if the team is picking up on something that Buck isn’t saying. 

“When did Buck see a counselor?” Eddie asks.

“It was after a bad call, four or five months into working here,” Buck answers for himself. “About a year ago now, actually.” He turns to Bobby again and adds on, “Abby ended up being more help in talking to me about it, anyway.” 

Eddie doesn’t miss Buck’s mood shifting or the way Chimney scrolls through more of the article. He doesn’t seem to be liking what he’s reading.

“Well, that’s good,” Bobby acknowledges, “but for future reference, you should look into a counselor if something happens again. Our significant others should always be part of our support system, but they aren’t meant to be the only one in it.”

“I absolutely agree, Cap.” Buck waves a french fry as he says it, and he manages to flick ketchup onto Chimney’s screen. Chimney’s attention doesn’t waver from his reading, but the team giggles as Buck continues, “I actually considered going back, but it wouldn’t have been to her.”

“Why?” Chimney asks a bit too harshly, head snapping up to look at him. The intensity of his glare makes Buck falter like the man already knew.

“I mean— Well—” Buck cuts himself off again and looks around. He checks to make sure that there isn’t anyone but his team around to overhear anything. The check shows that no one is even in the loft aside from them.

“It wasn’t going to really work out once we had sex. That kind of ruins the—”

Chimney curses and Buck looks to the others. They’ve all stopped moving again. Buck tries to swallow the sudden anxiety down.

He knew the day it happened that it was wrong and had experienced a lot of mixed feelings after, but the more it’d bugged him, the more he pushed the memory away. He barely even remembers it. 

The look on Bobby’s face is one of the reasons he’d not mentioned anything in the first place.

“Oh, c’mon, you all knew I was a horn dog,” he insists. “Also, this was before Buck 2.0,” he defends. “I don’t think there’s any room to be mad here.”

“No one is mad,” Bobby promises but doesn’t explain what he is feeling.

Hen sets down her burger, not having taken a bite yet, and turns to Chim. “What was she fired for?”

Chimney’s response is just above a whisper. “Fired, pending further investigation. She was having sex with her patients.” Bobby sucks in a sharp breath, but before anyone can say something, he continues on. “Three men, two from the LAFD and one from the LAPD, all reported sexual assault. There are,” he looks at his phone, then back at the group, “dozens of reports of attempts alone.”

Everyone is still, and Buck has his mouth open like he wants to say something, but can’t quite get it out. Doubts that Buck had about that day start coming back, stronger than ever.

Bobby’s next words are hesitant. “Buck… Was this sex consensual?”

“What do you mean?” Buck shifts in his seat and pulls on the collar of his shirt. 

“Was the sex something you wanted?”

“I mean, not at first really—” Everyone moves at that. Chimney and Hen move in their seats, clearly uncomfortable, and Buck can swear he hears the cup creak in Eddie’s grip.

“Buck,” Bobby starts softly, “why didn’t you tell anyone?”   
  
Buck leans one of his arms on the table and massages his forehead. 

“I guess I didn’t want to get in trouble—” Eddie makes a noise at the back of his throat, and Buck is quick to clarify, “No, no. I just— I was trying to be a better person, you know? I was trying not to have sex with every single woman that was attracted to me. After, she even said that it was super inappropriate because she was my therapist. We agreed not to tell anyone.”

“You both agreed?” Bobby’s eyebrows raise.

“Yeah. She said we could get in trouble—”

“She said that?” Bobby tries to clarify, and Buck suddenly feels small.

“Yeah, after she told me to go,” he mutters. “She said ‘we could both get in a lot of trouble for this,’ and I wasn’t going to take chances with the job I’d nearly lost a week before.”

“Oh, honey.” Hen reaches to put a hand on his arm. “You wouldn’t have been in any trouble. That’s all on her. She knows better, and she likely said that to keep you quiet.”

Buck shakes his head vehemently, standing up. “No,” he says, “ _ this _ wasn’t like that. I wanted it. It was consensual.” He starts walking away and Bobby runs to catch up to him before he gets to the stairs.

“Are you saying that to convince us or to convince yourself?” Bobby calls out. He manages to stop Buck at the edge of the couches. Buck turns on him and jabs a finger at his chest. 

“Don’t try to make me a victim here. I am  _ fine _ .” Buck looks back at the rest of the team, now all out of their seats as well. 

“Are you?” Bobby challenges.

“She didn’t force herself on me—”

“That doesn’t mean that what she did was okay.”

Bobby can see a response on the tip of the boy’s tongue, but he holds back on pressing for an answer. Instead, he grabs the hand still pressing into his chest and nods toward the couches.

“Let’s sit down, Buck.”

——

Buck sits on the couch, with Cap on the table in front of him. Hen and Chimney take up the spaces beside him, and Eddie hovers, standing at the edge of the couch like a guard protecting them all from outside forces. 

He takes a few minutes to gather himself, and the team lets him. Hen has an arm around his back rubbing circles into it, and it takes a lot not to curl into her arms.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he finally breaks the silence. “I didn’t feel like this about it before.” He wrings his hands anxiously. “I mean, I’d felt unsure about it after, maybe even a little bit dirty, but right now I feel awful.”

“It’s not uncommon,” Hen responds, softly. “Sometimes people experience things, and they know something is off about it, but when they realize what happened, and the magnitude of it, it hits differently.”

“When you realize that the intent behind someone’s actions are malicious, no matter what the circumstances are, it’s bound to make you uneasy,” Bobby adds. “People like her are predators. You were in a therapy session, with a  _ therapist _ , where you’re arguably supposed to feel your safest and most vulnerable all at once.”

“Vulnerable?”

Chim nods. “Whether it’s physical or mental,” he explains. “Like when someone approaches a person from behind, or when they’re not in a position where it’s possible to defend themselves.”

“Or when someone is hurting and seeking comfort to make the pain go away,” Hen suggests.

The realization strikes Buck so hard that the breath leaves his lungs and he finds it hard to inhale again. 

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he whispers. “One second I thought we were getting somewhere, I finally felt comfortable talking and I was even crying, and the next she was sitting in front of me and grabbing my hand.”

“Buck…” Bobby starts but never finishes. 

“She called me Mr. Buckley,” Buck continues, “so I corrected her, and she had this smile on her face. It felt weird because it was like she was  _ happy _ .”

“Hun, you don’t need to—” But Buck keeps going, ignoring Hen’s words. He feels like if he doesn’t say it now then he never will.

“And then I realized she looked familiar… She’d friended me on Facebook.” His eyes are trained on the edge of the table at a random magazine because it’s easier than looking his friends in the eyes, but Buck doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s hand clenches. Now that he’s talking about it out loud, he can hear how wrong it sounds.

“She shouldn’t have ever accepted to meet with me for a session if she’d just tried to friend me on Facebook,” Buck guesses at what they’re all thinking.

“No, she shouldn’t have,” Bobby confirms. “No therapist should ever meet with a client when they have an interest in a non-professional relationship.”

“Fuck.” Buck covers his face with his hands. “I don’t even know how it got heated so fast. I don’t even like talking about emotions, you know? I was feeling terrible and—”

“You were hurting, and you saw a way to feel good?” Eddie finishes for him.

Buck nods shamefully. He never thought he’d be in this position or feeling like this.

“She took advantage of you, Buck.” Hen concludes. 

Hearing the words clear as day makes him spiral.

“No— just—” He stands, shaking Hen’s hand off of him. He tries to extract himself from the group and leave as he continues his rambling denials. He doesn’t make out any clear sentences until Bobby has his hands on his shoulders and—

“Don’t touch me!” Buck shouts. Bobby immediately releases and raises his hands into the air. Buck notices several members of the firehouse near the entrance turning their heads, but no one makes a move to come upstairs. He breathes heavily, and Eddie notes that he looks like he wants to run again, but doesn’t act on it. 

“Sorry,” Buck finally murmurs.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Bobby assures him. 

No one else says anything, waiting to see what Buck wants to do. 

“Maybe she didn’t take advantage, okay?” He raises a hand before Chimney can get a word in. “It takes two to tango right? And I never said no.”

“That definitely doesn’t apply here,” Hen states. “And just because you didn’t say no, doesn’t mean you actually wanted it.” Buck shakes his head again.

“Now let me ask you something,” Bobby says, hands still in the air. “Why did the way I touch you make you react that way?”

Buck answers before he even knows he has one. “Because that’s how she held…” He stops himself before he finishes the sentence. Silent tears run down his face, and Buck looks away from the team, trying to quell the shame and disgust that rolls through his entire body.

“It— She was on my lap,” he continues, “and when I tried to— when I tried to lay her down on the couch, she pressed me back down… It made me feel claustrophobic.” 

Buck hastily wipes the tears from his face with shaking hands. 

“I didn’t remember that until right now,” he admits, his voice breaking. “But— but maybe it wasn’t supposed to be like that,” he tries again. “Maybe I’m not part of this pool of people—”

“Buck!” Chimney shouts over him. His volume lowers with his next words. “These claims go back a few years. You weren’t her first, and you weren’t the last.” 

Chimney‘s tone is regretful, but it does the smallest amount in ridding Buck of his doubts. As much as he’s been trying to see it as something other than what it was, there’s no questioning it now.

“Why didn’t I feel like this before?” he presses. 

“Buck, honey,” Hen stands and steps forward. She takes it as a win when he doesn’t move away. “It’s like we said. You sometimes don’t realize what’s happening as it happens. And based on what you told us alone, there are all these indicators that she knew what she was doing to make you react how she wanted to. And it sounds like part of you must have known that it was wrong because you blocked out some of what happened, probably as a way to cope with it. I mean, just look at yourself, Buck. You’re crying and shaking like a leaf. You can’t tell me that’s from some meaningless sex.” 

Buck just nods, completely at a loss for what to say.

Then the firehouse bell starts going off. Buck takes in a harsh breath and starts shaking his head.

“I can’t,” his voice breaks, “Cap—”

“I know,” he says. Bobby looks around at all of them, needing to come to a quick decision. “Alright, Eddie and Chimney, come with me. Hen, do you mind staying with Buck?” She doesn’t need to respond for Bobby to know the answer. He turns to her one last time, before disappearing down the stairs. “Maybe you should call Athena.”

Bobby is gone a second later, following after Chimney and Eddie. He calls out for a couple more people to join his team. It’s not usual for the captain to switch teams last minute, but it’s not disallowed either, so two women follow without hesitation.   


Hen stands at Buck’s side through their team’s departure, and it’s only after the house has fallen into complete silence once again that she turns to him, suggesting they sit.

This time Buck gives into temptation and lets himself lean into Hen. The woman had always carried an aura of warmth, and it’s only now that he realizes why Bobby had her stay behind. He settles his head near her collarbone as she pulls out her phone. 

Buck tunes out most of the conversation, but he can’t help but overhear when she says his name. Athena’s volume raises in worry, though he still doesn’t understand the words.

“No, he’s not okay,” Hen answers the unheard question. “But we’re going to make sure he will be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special Thanks to my beta readers: [ohmygodwerebackagain](https://ohmygodwerebackagain.tumblr.com), [AngelSweeney13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelSweeney13/pseuds/AngelSweeney13), and [destielstan](https://destielstan.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> So this is my version of the after-effects of what happened in 1.02 but addressed sometime in Season 2. Obviously this is not what happened or how it was portrayed in canon, but I also hated that whole thing so, hello fan fiction. 
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos, as they always encourage me to write more! If you feel I missed some necessary tags, please let me know what it is I should add.


End file.
